1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to hair appliance organizers, and more particularly pertains to a rack specifically designed to store hair appliances such as curling irons and blow dryers. Such appliances include electrical cords which frequently become tangled and disarrayed. Additionally, the devices are electrically heated and care must be taken as to their placement during heating for proper safety. Presently, such appliances are often stored utilizing the attached electrical cord as a support. This places undue strain on the cord and creates an electrical shock hazard. Additionally, such hair appliances are frequently laid upon a flat counter surface and as a result, their electrical cords become entangled. In order to overcome these problems, the present invention provides a rack for supporting and neatly organizing a plurality of hair appliances.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Various types of article storing racks are known in the prior art. A typical example of such a rack is to be found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,219,178, which issued to N. Assion on Aug. 26, 1980. This patent discloses a holder for an electrical appliance such as a hair dryer adapted for mounting on a wall surface and having a circular slotted aperture for receiving the handle of the appliance and further including selectively releasable detenting means for locking the appliance to the holder. U.S. Pat. No. 4,308,878, which issued to W. Silva on Jan. 5, 1982, discloses a curling iron holder formed of molded plastic and defining a central cavity dimensioned to receive the heated portion of a conventional curling iron. The diameter of the cavity is greater than that of the heated portion of the curling iron so that there is an annular space between the outer surface of the curling iron and the inner surface of the cavity. A plurality of centering guides hold the curling iron centrally in the cavity to maintain the annular space. U.S. Pat. No. Des. 293,651, which issued to W. Aeschliman on Jan. 12, 1988, discloses a lamp tube holder which includes a plurality of cylindrical holders provided with central longitudinally extending cylindrical sockets. U.S. Pat. No. 4,696,447, which issued to D. Strecker on Sept. 29, 1987, discloses a blow dryer holding device which includes a circular slotted holding portion pivotally mounted to a suction cup mounted retaining bracket. U.S. Pat. No. 4,746,090, which issued to R. Hamilton on May 24, 1988, discloses an adjustable holder for a hand held hair dryer which allows rotation and vertical movement of the hair dryer according to the needs of the user. The device comprises a holder member having an open sided receiving hole in one extremity dimensioned to receive a handle of a hair dryer and an attachment bracket on an opposite extremity. A wall mounted base is permanently attached to a wall and is formed with a vertically extending row of spaced apertures to allow adjustable vertical positioning of the holding member.
While the above mentioned devices are suited for their intended usage, none of these devices disclose a hair appliance organizer capable of storing a plurality of differently dimensioned blow dryers and curling irons. Additionally, none of the aforesaid devices disclose a hair appliance organizer rack including first and second spaced parallel rectangular support surfaces connected by a transverse wall forming an open rectangular channel and provided with a plurality of pairs of spaced aligned circular apertures for receiving various hair appliances. Additionally, none of the aforesaid devices disclose the use of selectively insertable frusto conical inserts of various dimensions for allowing storage of differently sized hair appliances. Inasmuch as the art is relatively crowded with respect to these various types of hair appliance organizers, it can be appreciated that there is a continuing need for and interest in improvements to such hair appliance organizers, and in this respect, the present invention addresses this need and interest.